Williamson school funding has officials and parents divided over which taxes to raise

Families flock to Williamson County for its high-achieving school districts.
That's why a recent proposal to slightly reduce next year's budget for Williamson County Schools has left some parents asking: Why is this happening?
Elaina Sauber / USA TODAY NETWORK-Tennessee

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Construction crews work on building the new Jordan Elementary, a new school on Split Log Road in Brentwood.(Photo11: Shelley Mays/The Tennessean )Buy Photo

Majority of commission supports sales tax hike

Williamson County Mayor Rogers Anderson’s proposal to increase the county's sales tax from 2.25 percent to 2.75 percent, was approved by five municipalities. The plan requires each city to contribute half itsrevenue from the .5 percent increase to the county for three years.

The revenue would help pay off debt from new school construction and is projected to generate about $60 million over three years -- just a small dent in the school district's need for more than $421 million for capital facilities costs over the next five years.

Elected officials in Brentwood, Franklin, Spring Hill, Nolensville and Thompson's Station voted to approve the proposal, while Fairview is already at the maximum 2.75-percent sales tax rate.

The Tennessean spoke to 20 of 23 Williamson County commissioners for this story. All of them said they planned to vote in favor of the upcoming sales tax increase on Nov. 13. Dwight Jones, Barb Sturgeon and Dana Ausbrooks didn’t respond to repeated calls and emails for this story.

Impact fee revenue in limbo

The school impact fee, which was first implemented in March, collected $5.94 million through the end of September.

The money isn’t being calculated into any county budget projections until the case is resolved. County Attorney Jeff Moseley said there likely won't be a hearing on the merits of the case until spring 2018.

If the sales tax referendum fails or the courts rule against Williamson County in the impact fee lawsuit, some commissioners say a property tax hike will be the only option left.

Sales tax versus property tax

Sixty percent of the county's population was born outside of Tennessee and is likely accustomed to payingproperty tax rates exceeding what’s considered the norm in the Volunteer State.

Ken Chilton moved to Williamson County four years ago from Louisville, Ky., and has a son in elementary school.

Chilton, who said he paid at least two and a half times more in property taxes in Louisville, thinks a higher sales tax would be regressive and hurt lower-income households.

"Most of the alternatives are piecemeal and small. It doesn't solve the long-term problem...I think property taxes are the best way to fully address the issue," Chilton said.

Judy Herbert, a seventh-generation Williamson County resident in her second term as commissioner, said many property tax increase supporters are new residents with younger families. But those residents, she said, are often in a better financial situation to bear higher taxes.

“The problem is these people are moving into jobs making the same wages they made somewhere else, (whereas) a lot of people who have lived here forever are making lower wages,” Herbert said. “When their children are out of school, will they still want our taxes raised?”

Herbert said she’s also heard several people say they moved to Williamson County for the quality schools, and plan to move away when their children graduate.

“It costs (roughly) $9,000 a year to educate a child. When they move here just for the schools and then move out, it’s cost everybody else money. They move on, and lifelong residents like me are paying for the debt on those schools.”

What about seniors?

Some commissioners say their disdain for a property tax increase stems from their older constituents who may live on fixed incomes and no longer have children in school.

“At some point, we’re gonna price seniors out of the marketplace,” Commissioner Gregg Lawrence said. “A lot of parents come to us happy to pay more money, but if you’re a senior on a fixed income, $1,000 more a year is a lot of money. So we have to balance the needs of all constituents, not just the parents of students.”

While people older than 65 comprised about 9 percent of the county’s total population in 2009, that figure reached more than 11 percent in 2015, according to U.S. Census estimates.

The number of seniors enrolled in the Williamson County and Tennessee tax relief programs has increased, but it's usually the lifers -- not the transplants -- who qualify, said Williamson County Trustee Karen Paris.

The property tax freeze program, which requires a maximum income of $52,470, had 1,601 households enrolled last year, compared to 1,156 in 2008, when it first went into effect.

Cleola Mangrum, 85, still lives in the Fairview home where she was born. Mangrum said she paid about $1,700 in property taxes last year on the 68 acres she owns. She said she'd rather see the sales tax referendum pass than a property tax hike.

"I'd rather it be taxes on everything other than the property tax," she said. "It's rough paying taxes every year, but so far we've been able to do it. We watch our pennies close."

County Commissioner Ricky Jones is in a precarious situation: He's represented district one for nearly two decades, and he's a government teacher at Fairview High School. He said it's a struggle to balance the desires of his constituents with those of the school district, especially because he considers the property tax "the most distasteful thing to raise."

"My area is the most rural, and I hear from my constituents, don't raise property taxes on their farm lands, (which) they've owned for years and years," Jones said.

"It gives us some breathing room"

Commissioner Paul Webb, who chairs the board's budget committee, is the key sponsor of the sales tax proposal. But he says it won't solve all the county's budget issues.

"It would give us a short-term solution as far as bonding capacity to get schools built, and at the same time from a political standpoint...the sales tax seemed like a better option," Webb said. "If the voters pass it, it gives us some breathing room."

There’s no indication how people will vote in the referendum, which would be in January or February.

"If the growth continues, the referendum fails and the court rules against us for the impact fee, then we have no other options," Webb said. "The property tax is going to have to go up if these other items fail...we can't cut costs to get out of that problem."

Commissioner Kathy Danner said while she plans to vote in favor of the sales tax resolution, she suspects the referendum will fail at the ballot box. Danner said there's a divide on the commission that boils down to a "tax and spend" mentality versus a "new ideas" mentality.

"There's a group of commissioners who vote for the tax solution every time, and then commissioners who put forth new ideas and ways to save or generate money -- and their ideas have failed on this commission or previous commissioners," she said.

“Basically the county commission has already stated, if we can’t secure the revenue via the sales tax or impact fee, then we’re committed to raising property taxes. I think the truth is that everybody who already voted yes on that is already saying, ‘We’re going to support what’s needed to fund these projects.' At the end of the day, if the worst case scenario happens, we’re going to support a property tax increase," Williams said.

"It felt like we were stealing"

Property taxes generate the most revenue for the local school system, and proponents of a potential tax hike point out that Williamson County’s property tax rate is the lowest in the region, at $2.15 per $100 of assessed value. $1.21 of that goes toward the school district.

That means a family living in a $500,000 home would pay about $2,687 a year, and $1,512 of that goes to schools.

When Sara Melamed moved her family from Bellevue to Brentwood, their home value nearly doubled -- but their property tax bill was comparable to Davidson County, she said.

"It felt like we were stealing, practically," said Melamed, who moved to Tennessee in 2003 from the Washington, D.C. area.

Melamed prefers a property tax increase over a sales tax hike.

"It's a very regressive approach in my mind. I think the people who can afford to pay more should be paying more," she said. "With such a high sales tax rate, we're penalizing those with lower incomes."

Would commissioners support a property tax next year if a sales tax referendum fails?

Betsy Hester: "I'm going to have to examine that issue a great deal more before I could commit to a property tax increase."

Bert Chalfant: "I'm just not gonna answer the question. That's a big what-if, and I don't know how accurate that what-if is."

Tommy Little: "I've voted for one before, I would vote for one again if I have to."

Jeff Ford: "I'm gonna let that play out before we talk about hypotheticals for other opportunities for revenue."

Jennifer Mason: "There has to be a discussion at some point about property taxes. We can't continue to approve, approve, approve, without having financial means to support what we're approving. I'd call it Economics 101."

Brandon Ryan: "You never say never. But I cannot imagine that I’ll be voting for a property tax increase. To me, our backs would have to be against the wall with a gun pointed to our heads before I would do that."

A look at the numbers

WCS Student population

Latest enrollment figure: 39,342

Projected population in 2026-27 school year: 57,540

Approved funding for campus improvements:

Page Middle and Page High: $20.4 million total - $4.9 million for design and initial site work and $15.5 million for phase one.

Brentwood Middle and Brentwood High: $17.2 million

Franklin High: $9.29 million

School budget

2017-18 operational budget: $337.7 million

In last year's school budget, the property tax funded about 67.8 percent of local education funds.

Local sales tax generated about 30.6 percent.

About the sales tax referendum

If the county commission approves a referendum in November, the county's election commission could hold a referendum in late January at the earliest.

The election commission has 75 to 90 days to hold a referendum after approval from the county commission.

The sales tax increase would require a majority vote from county residents.